I like languages. Alt accounts Erika3sis@hexbear.net Erika4sis@lemmygrad.ml

she/xe/it/thon/seraph | NO/EN/RU/JP

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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • LLM/AI tools can massively decrease the cost of dubbing media into smaller languages, including the cost of creating audio descriptions for the visually impaired. I don’t know the extent to which these uses are actually being implemented at the moment, but yeah. It’s by all means possible, and in my eyes pretty cool. These uses would not replace real people, would not require unethical practices, but would still reduce the workload.

    I’m kind of disappointed by the ways in which AI is being presented as a “terk er jerbs” thing in fields where it has no rightful place, the ways in which AI is presented as a “procedurally generated Netflix and chill with my robot girlfriend” hyperreal horrorshow, the ways in which AI is being used for scams. AI absolutely has its places in society, and helping with accessibility and localization is one of them.

    Edit: Yes, and also writing closed captions, and arguably even using deepfakes to “dub” shows and movies into sign languages could be potential uses.

    There’s also how chatbots can be used as language study buddies for those without the ability to talk to actual native speakers, although I haven’t had much success with this, personally.




  • There’s no real consensus on translating neopronouns, so different translation approaches are used depending on the needs of the translation and its target language. It’s a good idea in any case to provide translation notes or glosses for anything that might get lost in translation.

    What I’d personally recommend is this:

    When writing about a real person, ask yourself:

    • Can I ask this person for translation recommendations?
    • If yes, translate according to the recommendations.
    • If no, does this person also go by pronouns which are easier to translate?
    • If yes, use those pronouns instead of the neopronouns.
    • If no, use the “default” gender-neutral terms of the target language.

    When writing about a fictional character, ask yourself:

    • Can I ask the original author for translation recommendations?
    • If yes, translate according to the recommendations.
    • If no, use whatever feels right.

    Avoiding pronouns entirely, leaving the neopronoun untranslated, or matching the neopronoun with one from the target language, are all translation approaches that may be more appropriate in some situations, but which also present unique challenges for the translator.





  • “MEN OTEMJEJ REJ ILO BEIN ANIJ” — “ALL IS IN THE HANDS OF GOD” — were the words uttered by Juda, leader of the Bikinians, to Commodore Wyatt when asked to exile his own people for the “good of mankind”. It is said that Juda’s words were intended to imply, “It would literally take divine intervention for me to agree to this.”. Nevertheless, the Bikinians would be taken from their homes, and as the ships sailed away, the Bikinians got to watch their many-generations’ houses and boats get burned down by the American soldiers. Many of the Bikinians wouldn’t eat after witnessing that, and they would live in poverty in their new homes.

    It’s no wonder, then, that the Bikinian flag looks like a desecrated American flag.

    This isn’t to say that Bikini was a more inhumane act than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hearing any recollection by survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or seeing any of the artwork that they created to process their experiences, makes that much obvious. But you hear about Hiroshima and Nagasaki: it has a place in the popular imagination, even if it is a heavily sanitized version that portrays the annihilation as “necessary”.

    In contrast, when’s the last time you met someone who knew of “Bikini” as anything other than swimwear?


  • Erika2rsis@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoMemes@lemmy.mlDon't ask
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    1 year ago

    Honestly, I read the above article a few months ago, and I think it is a genuinely good article that I would recommend others read. It was written nine years after Tiananmen by Jay Mathews of the Washington Post, who was in Beijing during the protests; and the Columbia Journalism Review is a respected publication written by and for professional journalists. So the article is basically just trying to disspell the dumbing down and memeifying and misremembering and making-into-propaganda that happened with Tiananmen, and which honestly tends to happen with any major loss of life. No conspiracy theories, no denialism or claiming that “they had it coming”, just dispelling misconceptions. It’s good stuff.

    I can’t speak for Davel’s other comment citing Prolewiki, though — I’m pretty skeptical to any website that tries to be Wikipedia but for X ideology.

    In any case, this “butthurt report” feels pretty unfair, although I honestly did kinda roll my eyes at how Davel’s comment said “6 out of 7 ain’t bad”, that was kinda cringe… But basically, what I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t fault someone for commenting under a “9/11 NEVER FORGET” post about the extent to which mismanagement and confusion contributed to the death toll of that, and likewise I wouldn’t fault someone for commenting under a Tiananmen Square post with more nuance about that event.


  • Erika2rsis@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoMemes@lemmy.mlDon't ask
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    1 year ago

    “Was there a massacre in Tiananmen Square?”

    —“No.”

    “Were people killed elsewhere in Beijing?”

    —“…Ermh…”

    Ahem. I am asking you if people were killed in the area immediately surrounding Tiananmen Square, even if nobody was killed in the square itself.”

    —“The protesters in Tiananmen Square left after negotiations with the PLA. There was no bloodshed in Tiananmen Square.”

    “I understand that, but were people killed elsewhere in Beijing?

    —“Nowhere in Beijing were student protestors specifically targeted.”

    “Well, were non-students targeted, and were any students injured or killed without being targeted?”

    —“Hey did you know that the Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest—”

    “Gongchandang, my friend, I am begging you.”

    —“…Force may have been used when provoked by attacks.”

    “May force have also been used unprovoked? Could it have been that the protesters felt like they were provoked first, because you were sending tanks past the barricades that they’d put up?”

    —“I mean… you know… uhh…”

    “Gongchandang. Were you scared that the occupation of Beijing and the potential of a workers’ revolt would threaten the survival of socialism in China, by presenting a still-socialist alternative to your rule, because societal division particularly among the less politically literate could be (and was) exploited by outside forces?”

    —“OUR YOUTH ARE VULNERABLE TO IMPERIALIST PROPAGANDA, OK‽ ALSO, TANK MAN DIDN’T GET RUN OVER. SEE. HE WAS PULLED AWAY BY A PASSERBY. NOT RUN OVER.”




  • That is how it works, yeah. Very good point. Nobody needs to be actively malicious or conspiratorial, and it’s silly to imagine people being that conniving: The most profitable matching algorithm on a dating app just happens to be ineffective for most people, and whoever happens to stumble on that algorithm first ends up making the most profitable dating app – no need to know why it works, just that it does.



  • Also, like, language learning apps suffer from the same problem as dating apps: if these apps could actually teach you a language, you’d eventually get proficient enough at the language to no longer need the app — and if you no longer need the app, then it can’t harvest your data or subscription money anymore, and line goes down. So the app always needs to give you the impression that you’re making progress, while actually sabotaging your learning at every step.

    This isn’t to say that these apps don’t have a place in the language learning process, but rather I’m saying that you need to be incredibly wary not just of the privacy issues, but of how to actually use these apps effectively. If you’re aware of their tricks, then they become less effective.


  • Jan Misali’s 2022 Toki Pona language cover of the Symphogear “Beef Stroganoff” song is nearing its 40,000th view on YouTube. Whether this entertaining deconstruction of a beef Stroganoff recipe will reach this milestone of popularity this year or next remains to be seen. “Moku Sutolokanopu” is the most popular song about beef Stroganoff of the 2020s thus far, and the most popular song about beef Stroganoff in the Toki Pona language of all time.

    That concludes this year’s big Stroganews. Thank you for your attention.



  • STOP POSTING ABOUT POLITICS. I’M TIRED OF SEEING IT. MY FRIENDS ON LEMMY SEND ME MEMES. ON KBIN IT’S FUCKIN’ MEMES. I WAS ON AN INSTANCE, RIGHT, AND AAAAAAALLLL OF THE COMMUNITIES ARE JUST POLITICS STUFF. I- I SHOWED MY CHAMPION UNDERWEAR TO MY GIRLFRIEND, AND THE LOGO, I LOOKED AT IT, AND I SAID, “HEY BABE, WHEN THE COMMODITY IS FETISHIZED” [ding-ding-dings to the tune of The Internationale] I FUCKIN’ LOOKED AT A TRASH CAN, I SAID, “UNDER CAPITALISM, WASTE PLAYS A VITAL ROLE IN THE ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY THAT UNDERPINS THE ENTIRE SOCIO-ECONOMIC SYSTEM”. I LOOK AT MY PENIS, I THINK OF THE OMNIPRESENT PHALLOCENTRISM IN OUR PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY, AND I GO, “POLITICS? MORE LIKE POLY-DICKS!

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA